Deep and Thralls Revived – Power Rankings Patch 3.8

Another Monday means another meta informative Power Rankings where I share the best decks for the competitive ladder that you could pick up and start your climb!

Patch 3.8 brought new champions to the roster which definitely shook up the meta, the new cards also revived a couple of underplayed archetypes some of which made today’s top 8!

Let’s get going, here are my top 8 best decks to start your ranked ladder climb now!

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The king of the meta for this week’s Power Rankings is non-other than Viego Shurima! Its domination of the previous meta carries on as it proves it’s one of the most consistent decks right now.

Mono Viego Shurima Deck Guide

At the moment, the archetype isn’t as popular on the ladder as it was in the previous season. Mostly because players are still in their experimental phase, still trying to discover hidden gems or at least refine the already existing ones.

Viego is a great choice against decks like Annie Jhin, Deep, and Thralls. It can also hold its own against Zed Bard thanks to Quicksand which shuts down their Elusive win condition.

The deck doesn’t auto lose any matchups, unfavored matchups are pretty close to winnable making it all around the best deck in the meta!

Fizz Aphelios and Ezreal Annie are the only formidable foes that stand in the way of Viego. Fizz Aphelios’ ability to go wide on the board whole also threaten an Elusive win condition can be difficult for the king of the meta to deal with. Whereas the Annie Ezreal matchup is specifically difficult because of the addition of Disintegrate which can deal with Viego on the spot, and it’s quite difficult for you to shut down their burn plan.

Video Guide

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Runner up for this week’s Power Rankings is the new Demacia Bilgewater archetype, Illaoi Jarvan IV Garen.

Illaoi perfectly fits with the Demacia region, cards like Cataclysm and Concerted Strike bring out the best put of the Tentacles deck.

The midrange deck relies on Illaoi’s Overwhelm keyword as a win condition, the more pumped up your Tentacle is, the more Illiaoi is a threat. Jarvan IV on the other hand provides a more aggressive approach, the burst attack can catch slow decks off guard and guarantee a win.

What makes the deck a good choice for your ladder climb is its good match-up table. Illaoi Javan Garen does well against Thralls, Deep, Annie Jhin, and Bard Zed all popular decks on the competitive ladder.

Another version of Illaoi Demacia that has also been performing well is the pairing of Illaoi with Lux, relying more on the Final Sparks of Lux to slowly remove units and chip on the opponent’s Nexus.

Video Guide

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Ezreal Annie makes the third place, the newest version of an Annie deck that doesn’t solely rely on being an aggressive deck but wants to slowly set up its win condition with Ravenbloom Conservatory and Ezreal’s capability to burn down the opponent.

Best Annie Decks – LoR Worldwalker Expansion

The archetype can play a tad of an aggressive setup with Spell Slinger and Arachnoid Sentry and it can catch the opponent off guard especially if you’re up against a midrange deck that can’t summon a lot of units to act as blockers.

Many players have already made Master rank with this version of Annie, it beats Annie Jhin, Zed Bard, Lurk, Pantheon, and many more! It really only struggles into Deep and Feel The Rush. The Thralls matchup used to be difficult to win but players have now added Piltovan Tellstones which creates an Aftershock that destroys a Frozen Thrall before it becomes problematic.

Video Guide

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Yuumi Pantheon managed to dodge nerfs to its list and it remains one of the best decks for the competitive ladder and tournament lineup. The Demacia Targon midrange deck relies on buffing up one of the Fated units and granting it the Overwhelm keyword. If that’s not enough to win the game, Pantheon is always ready to close out a game with the keyword he’ll gain once leveled up.

The deck dominates almost all midrange decks and only struggles with aggressive decks capable of going wide on the board and with a burn plan to follow it up.

This means Pantheon performs well against Illaoi decks, Deep, and Scouts, it is slightly favored against Thralls and Lurk, and it loses to Annie Jhin and Annie Ezreal.

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The archetype is well known and loved by the majority of the community, and although Thralls fell out of the competitive ladder meta, the deck remained a good meta call in the tournament scene, brought to counter and dominate specific popular meta decks.

What’s new about Thralls that helped the archetype regain its glory days as one of the top meta decks?

Well, the newest expansion brought two new cards to the Thralls list – Harbinger Thralls and Sands of Time. Harbinger Thralls’ ability to summon a Frozen Thrall on the board makes the deck more consistent. On top of that, its second ability that advances all Frozen Thralls is the cherry on top, the card is simply perfect for its adaptability depending on the time you play it.

As for Sands of Time, it fills the spot of The Clock Hand, creating an Instant Centuries to advance your Frozen Thrall. Additionally, its ability to drop the power level of all of the opponent’s units by -2 can come in handy to survive a specific turn.

Thralls can beat both Deep and Zed Bard pretty reliably. Moreover, most of the other matchups are close to even, or at least slightly favored which makes Thralls a good ladder deck right now.

Video Guide

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Fizz Aphelios, an archetype that emerged at the end of the previous season, is still in good shape and is difficult to control for a lot of popular meta decks.

The deck relies on the Attach keyword to set up its win condition, Fizz specifically can be difficult to remove off the board and once you attach Rainbowfish on him, he’s almost unstoppable.

Fizz Aphelios is a good choice for the different Annie versions, Deep, and Viego, all popular decks that you’ll probably see on your ladder climb.

Demacia decks are your kryptonite, decks like Yuumi Pantheon, Scouts, and even the new Illaoi Demacia can put the deck in its place. Sharpsight can be enough to slow you down until they set up their winning play.

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Scouts is another old archetype that remains a solid choice, the aggressive Demacia deck can close out games before the opposing deck can set up its win condition.

Going wide on the board with Miss Fortune as a win condition can be problematic to most meta decks especially Zed Bard or Deep. Scouts also perform well into Annie Jhin and Annie Ezreal, both are well present in the meta.

Scouts does struggle into two well-known decks though, Yuumi Pantheon and Viego, so if you’re seeing a whole lot of those two decks it’s probably best to switch off.

As for the Thralls matchup, Scouts used to be favored against Thralls but it seems the addition of the new Harbinger Thralls has made the matchup somewhat even.

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Deep barely makes it to the Power Rankings! It’s currently one of my favorite decks to play on the competitive ladder and I’m holding a 78% win rate with it! Raphterra also did a complete guide on it, giving him similar success.

Solo Nautilus Deep Deck Guide

The unique archetype that relies on the Toss mechanic fell out of meta for quite a while, but with the addition of Megatusk and Undergrowth, it quickly rose to become one of the most played decks on the first week of the expansion.

The reason it’s been performing well is due to Undergrowth’s Toss ability which makes the deck more consistent. At the same time, both new cards offer healing, which comes in useful against aggressive decks that want to close out the game as fast as possible.

Deep is a great choice to combat Annie Jhin and Annie Ezreal, two of the most popular decks in the meta. It does struggle into Thralls but if you’re able to get a good early game, the Sea Monsters are able to stand firm to those chunky Thralls.

Video Guide

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Closing Words

Although Annie Jhin and Zed Bard are currently popular decks on the competitive ladder, I don’t think they’re the best choice to make your ladder climb with them. Zed Bard specifically can be shut down by many meta decks before it can even set up its winning play. As for the Annie Jhin deck, I simply don’t think it’s on par with Annie Ezreal, most of the meta is trying to combat the aggressiveness of the deck.

We’re still at the beginning of a new meta that hasn’t settled down yet, we could potentially still see new innovations from players that might contest some of the meta decks for a spot in the Power Rankings.